That;s nothing to feel foolish about you say? (even if you think I ought to feel foolish let’s just go with you think I am silly for feeling foolish.. it goes with the moment k? )

Well maybe not but that;s how I feel. So what;s wrong with that? Its MY feeling…

and guess what?

Today’s Mental Moment

is about that too.

Um, feelings, not mine in particular. Especially the feeling foolish one, I am over that already so it would be silly to have a whole moment dedicated to me feeling foolish. I mean it doesn’t really happen that often and I can handle it usually. Sometimes I start to feel sad or mad or embarrassed that ….

How did we get to talking about me and my feelings again>?

First of all let;s define exactly what we are talking about here. Feelings are pretty broad and can include your physical state – feeling sick, your mental state – feeling confused, and your emotional state – feeling sad, happy, mad loving, hateful, etc etc.

We use the word feelings to cover the whole spectrum of .,.. of the way we feel.

Wow that was enlightening right?

In a nutshell feelings are the physical manifestations of out thoughts.

It’s true.

Consider this :

Let’s say you are feeling sad. That’s your feeling for the moment. Why? WHat happened to cause your sadness? Let’s say you were reminded in some way of.. a relative that you were very close to that passed away. You are thinking bout them and you start to feel, the way sad feels.

You feel this because of what you are thinking. And your thoughts are based on your beliefs that your loved one is no longer going to be around to spend time with you. A valid and provable belief by the way. Rational based on the facts.

Ok Let’s say that you have the belief that all guys are cheaters. (or all girls) .

That no matter what, at some point or another, your boyfriend / girlfriend will cheat on you – not maybe, WILL.

That is your belief for whatever reason. whether you believe it because of observing, because of experience, or because you heard someone, a parent perhaps say it over and over growing up and without even realizing it you internalized it.

So you are going along and everything is just fine and one day while you and your bf / gf are out, you run across a girl (guy) that you have never met nor heard their name but your bf/gf seems awfully chummy with them.

They hug they kiss on the cheek, she (he) is laughing , out loud even and suddenly you start to notice a queasy sensation in your stomach, or a lump forms in your throat, then you tart thinking well here it is, the other girl / guy.

And you feel jealous, and insecure and mad and hurt.

Ok here is the kinda hard part to grasp but it is oh so important.

Why? Because there are so many arguments and misunderstandings caused by feelings and if we could understand them and what they mean, if we could own them, as in take responsibility for the way we feel instead of trying to blame someone else for making us feel that way, if we coud get validation for our feelings no matter what they are, things would be a whole heck of a lot easier.

So pay attention. I mean please. Sorry I just want to get this right and if you go “oh wow holy emotional muck Lizzie I get it”.. I will feel very happy.

No, I am not putting the responsibility of my happiness on you. Just my hopes and dreams… no sorry. See there I tried to make you feel guilty. that; another story about feelings..nevermind…

Where were we at with Ms /Mr. jealous and insecure? Oh ok – so you are standing there and all these emotions are washing over you and you want to run, or puke or however you handle the thought of betrayal, because that is what you believe you are seeing. What you are thinking…

Your feelings come from your thoughts about what you are seeing that are based on the belief that you carry (consciously or not) that all guys / girls will cheat. And…

Your feelings aren’t wrong. Don;t ever let anyone tell you what you feel is wrong.. because no matter why you feel it… you feel it, and it is real. If someone tells you that what you feel is wrong, it is not what you feel that is wrong but with the feeling strongly physical, you may hear

Your feelings are wrong

and process this

you are wrong, and your perception is wrong and you don’t know anything.

and why do the people that we tell our feelings to tell us we are wrong? Well, because we tend to try to put the responsibility of our feelings on others.

You made me mad. or sad or jealous or insecure. No one wants the liability of causing bad feelings and if you tell someone you made me feel… something bad and its based on say the example above, well of course we will say you are wrong to feel that because I didn’t do what you said.

Back to the example above. so you are standing there and let;s say you start to cry while your bf / gf is chatting up the stranger. Ok guys, you don’t have to cry although there is no shame in it if you are feeling it, you do something that signals your obvious distress… how’s that.

Well so here you are feeling all these things and all of a sudden your bf / gf says

hey I want you to met my 3rd cousin 15 times removed, they are here in town and what a coinkydink we ran into them before we were gong to have dinner tonight.

Oh dinner tonight the thought goes in your head… a vague memory of dinner tonight with some distant relative of..your…bf…gf…

And you suddenly feel relief, and maybe a little foolish and also damn happy that you were filled in before you made a stink and accused your bf / gf and the person you are having dinner with tonight of doinking on the sly.

If we real quick reverse the situation and say that the belief is that your bf / gf would never ever cheat on you. you could be party to this situation and it turns out that the whole cousin thing is actually a ruse and you would never be the wiser,

If you don’t hold a belief that makes you question the scenario then you wont feel too much about it. In fact in may not even register.

Sometimes we hold so strong you to our beliefs that even with something right in our faces, we may deny it. But if you are paying attention your feelings may be trying to come out based on what you just witnessed or what is obvious. That is a gut feeling and at that point you may have conflicting emotions, or an upset tummy as your gut tries to tell you something.

You see, feelings are ever-changing based on the things we are thinking about what we are seeing and how it relates to our beliefs. All of this is not necessarily conscious effort and you may not even be aware of it.

If you can be more mindful of your thoughts, beliefs and the resulting feelings, you have much better chance that your feelings will be appropriate for the given situation.

It isn;t your feelings that are wrong my friends, it is the beliefs and thoughts that are irrational or wrong, and if you take the time to examine your feelings and why you feel this way, to go through the parts of it and say to yourself, is there really a valid reason for this? You will find that, your feelings are friends not food, and that you are more likely and willing to take responsibility for your own feelings, including your happiness, then to blame them on the ones you love or anybody else for that matter.

If you can tell someone,

I feel this

rather than

you made me feel this

and it comes from a place of self awareness as to its validity of thought, you will get more validation and you will also trust yourself and your feelings more.

Feel what you feel. If your thoughts are valid and rational then your feeling are appropriate but even if you find that they aren;t based on correct thoughts, you felt it, they were real, they aren’t wrong.

If you change the belief that led to the thought that caused the feeling, the feeling will change. Don’t start at the bottom and say the feeling is wrong change it, because if you don’t find out why you felt it, you never can.

Definitely right ( I thought you’d like to know that…but you already did right)…Feelings are real and cannot be reasoned away. But best to not act on feelings alone as in your example as you can put yourself through a lot of heartache if all the facts of a situation are not known….Diane

well I thought I had the right idea.. but wasn;t sure if I coud pull it off in explanation. I think its a hard concept to grasp at first – once you get it. you get it…at least that was my experience but it helps keep the emotional crap …valid I guessl Thanks, I was waiting to see what you would say becasue I know that you have some (a lot?) of experience with this sort of thing. I am happy, based on the thought that I got it right, or at least understandable which comes from the belief that if you tell me so then it is so because you know much more than I an you didn;t sya huh? …. 😀

Oh how wise you are my child….just kidding..But you’re right when I was in a depression for so many years I focused on my feelings and felt justified…Yes they were my feelings but I projected them as being the only answer possible…and therefore I must be right in all my negative assumptions ….does that make sense…I’m not sure I’m saying it quite right….Diane

yup – to me it does… you felt what you felt and based everything around them because you didn’t yet se that your feelings were the product of thoughts and beliefs… some tht can be changed..its a huge lightbulb moment for someone running on feeings – like me and you and others that are very emotional … but lets do say that doesn’t mean we can think our way out of depression that is a whole other ball of wax right?

It took a lot of years for me to do so…but I finally hit the jackpot with a doctor that stuck with me and in my case she had just finished her CBT course and asked me if I was interested…It didn’t happen overnight…took years but challenging my thoughts was the key…just maybe my thinking and ‘feelings’ weren’t as accurate as I ‘felt’ they were…In any case the light finally came where before there was only darkness….my I did go on didn’t I…Diane